Visitors' comments

Keys to History

The Britannia Bridge, which spans the Menai Straits in Wales, was one of the first tubular railway bridges. Completed in 1850, it was equipped with two tubes through which trains could travel. At a total length of 140 metres, it had the longest continuous span of any bridge at that time.

With its hollow beams or tubes, the Britannia was the forerunner of a type of beam bridge, the solid beam, that would often be used by railway companies. In this type of bridge, trains run over a solid beam instead of through the inside of a hollow one.